The Batum Oblast (pre-reform Russian: Бату́мская о́бласть, tr. Batúmskaya óblast; Georgian: ბათუმის ოლქი) was an oblast ("region") of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire, with the Black Sea port of Batumi as its administrative center. The Batum Oblast roughly corresponded to most of present-day southwestern Georgia, and part of the Artvin Province of the Republic of Turkey.
Batum Oblast
Батумская область | |
---|---|
![]() Administrative map of the Batum Oblast | |
Land | Russian Empire |
Viceroyalty | Caucasus |
Established | 1873 |
Abolished | 1918 |
Capital | Batum (Batumi) |
Area | |
• Total | 6,975.65 km2 (2,693.31 sq mi) |
Population (1916) | |
• Total | 122,811 |
• Density | 18/km2 (46/sq mi) |
• Urban | 22.02% |
• Rural | 87.98% |
History
The Batum Oblast was created out of the territories of the Ottoman Empire's Batum Sanjak, following the region's annexation into the Russian Empire in the aftermath of the 1878 Russo-Turkish War.
Established in 1878, the Batum Oblast was later downgraded to an okrug in 1883 and incorporated into the Kutais Governorate (until 1903).[1]
According to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Russian SFSR ceded the Batum Oblast to the Ottoman Empire, however, the Transcaucasian Seim, the authority in Transcaucasia by 1918, rejected the treaty, opting to negotiate with the Ottoman Empire on its own terms. Such action led to the former's dissolution and the subsequent Treaty of Batum, which resulted in the inevitable reannexation of Batum to the Ottoman Empire.
After the Mudros Armistice, in which the Ottoman Empire was forced to withdraw its troops from the territories of the former Russian Transcaucasus including Batum, British troops under the 27th Division occupied the district to support the British military presence in the Transcaucasus, and to serve as a terminal for supplying Denikin's Volunteer Army.
The Batum Oblast was finally evacuated by the British in the summer of 1919, and handed over to the Democratic Republic of Georgia, whom administered the district until it was occupied by Turkish revolutionaries, leading to the Treaty of Kars which resulted in the partition of the district. The north including the port of Batum was retained by Georgia as an autonomy, and the southern Artvin district was incorporated into the fledgling Republic of Turkey as the Artvin Province.
Administrative divisions
The okrugs ("districts") of the Black Sea Governorate in 1916 were as follows:[2][3]
District | Russian name | Capital | Population | Area | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1897 | 1916 | sq. vst. | sq. km. | |||
Artvin | Артвинскій округъ | Artvin | 56,140 | 37,414 | 2,875.06 | 3,272.00 |
Batum | Батумскій округъ | Batum (Batumi) | 88,444 | 85,397 | 3,254.05 | 3,703.31 |
Demographics
Russian Empire census (1897)
According to the Russian Empire census of 1897, the Batum Oblast (at the time part of the Kutais Governorate) had a population of 144,584, including 82,213 men and 62,371 women. The plurality of the population indicated Georgian to be their mother tongue, with significant Turkish, Armenian and Russian speaking minorities.[2]
Sprache | Native speakers | % |
---|---|---|
Georgian | 62,004 | 42.88 |
Turkish | 44,667 | 30.89 |
Armenian | 14,939 | 10.33 |
Russian | 7,525 | 5.20 |
Greek | 4,717 | 3.26 |
Ukrainian | 2,351 | 1.63 |
Kurdish | 1,811 | 1.25 |
Jewish | 1,076 | 0.74 |
Polish | 911 | 0.63 |
Persian | 767 | 0.53 |
Abkhazian | 693 | 0.48 |
Mingrelian | 635 | 0.44 |
German | 369 | 0.26 |
Imeretian | 356 | 0.25 |
Tatar[a] | 355 | 0.25 |
Lithuanian | 157 | 0.11 |
Sartic | 156 | 0.11 |
Belarusian | 80 | 0.06 |
Avar-Andean | 56 | 0.04 |
Kazi-Kumukh | 47 | 0.03 |
Englisch | 38 | 0.03 |
Ossetian | 29 | 0.02 |
Romanian | 27 | 0.02 |
Svan | 17 | 0.01 |
Estonian | 11 | 0.01 |
Other | 790 | 0.55 |
ТОТАL | 144,584 | 100.00 |
Caucasian Calendar (1917)
According to the 1917 publication of the Caucasian Calendar, the Batum Oblast had 122,811 residents in 1916, including 66,808 men and 56,003 women, 95,292 of whom were the permanent population, and 27,519 were temporary residents:[3]
Nationality | Urban | Rural | TOTAL | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | |
Georgians | 7,363 | 27.25 | 71,476 | 74.61 | 78,839 | 64.20 |
Armenians | 10,975 | 40.62 | 4,217 | 4.40 | 15,192 | 12.37 |
Sunni Muslims | 75 | 0.28 | 14,267 | 14.89 | 14,342 | 11.68 |
Russians | 5,042 | 18.66 | 3,503 | 3.66 | 8,545 | 6.96 |
Asiatic Christians | 1,097 | 4.06 | 1,147 | 1.20 | 2,244 | 1.83 |
Other Europeans | 855 | 3.16 | 120 | 0.13 | 975 | 0.79 |
Shia Muslims | 529 | 1.96 | 165 | 0.17 | 694 | 0.57 |
North Caucasians | 476 | 1.76 | 180 | 0.19 | 656 | 0.53 |
Jews | 597 | 2.21 | 10 | 0.01 | 607 | 0.49 |
Kurds | 8 | 0.03 | 544 | 0.57 | 552 | 0.45 |
Roma | 0 | 0.00 | 165 | 0.17 | 165 | 0.13 |
TOTAL | 27,017 | 100.00 | 95,794 | 100.00 | 122,811 | 100.00 |
See also
Notes
- ^ Later known as Azerbaijani.
References
- ^ Tsutsiev, Arthur (2014), Atlas of the Ethno-Political History of the Caucasus, New Haven and London, p. 38, ISBN 978-0-300-15308-8, OCLC 884858065, retrieved 2021-12-25
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b c "Демоскоп Weekly - Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей". www.demoscope.ru. Retrieved 2022-03-26.
- ^ a b Кавказский календарь на 1917 год [Caucasian calendar for 1917] (in Russian) (72nd ed.). Tiflis: Tipografiya kantselyarii Ye.I.V. na Kavkaze, kazenny dom. 1917. pp. 182–185. Archived from the original on 4 November 2021.